Business Card Collections

If you own a business - and you probably are or want to be if you are reading this article - then you probably have business cards. You have your own of course, but you also have been collecting cards. Business cards are the world's smallest billboard. They are chock full of information and insight into a company and an individual. They also start to take over desks, counter tops, wallets, desk drawers, the center console of your car, and once in a while the washing machine (Oops!).

As I've tried to get more organized I've created an elaborate chain of command for business cards. You don't have to have a long process - probably just a few different boxes or bins. These are the names on my bins.

BNI Members (1st 3 cards) - If you are a member of my BNI chapter I'm carrying three of your business cards in my BNI card wallet. When I talk to someone who expresses an interest in your service or if they have a need that you can fulfill then I pass them a card. I'll let you know that I'm promoting you and if they give consent I'll pass you a written referral in BNI with their phone number.

BNI Members (overflow cards) - Sometimes I end up with extra cards of yours. I keep a small box of overflow cards of active Ithaca Thumbs Up BNI Members.

Top 10 Referral Source - If you and I have developed a relationship and we are both at a high level of credibility with each other - then I put 1 of your cards in my wallet. I usually carry cards for my top 10 sources, 5 of my own, and 5 of Arjan's. I keep 5 of each card for each of my top 10 sources in the center console of my car. All of the rest I keep on a Top 10 Referral Source table in my office. When clients come to visit - the top 10 Referral Sources are displayed.

Certified Networker Students at Credibility - My business is about helping people grow their business by referral. A Referral Institute client doesn't get automatic credibility with me - it takes time. For all of my Certified Networker clients where our relationship is at Credibility - I have a special box for your cards. I bring them to our Certified Networker classes and my Referral Success 101 classes to share with other Referral Institute clients.

Credibility Rolodex - For members of the business community where we have a credibility relationship (and you aren't one of my top 10 sources or an active BNI member) I keep a Credibility Rolodex. I use this to refer non-contact sphere professionals to clients, family, and friends. I try to keep one of your cards in this rolodex and the remainder in a Credibility Box.

Visibility Drawer - If we've met, but we aren't yet at Credibility, then your card goes in the visibility drawer. It isn't a dungeon - its just a holding place. I can't refer people to you (because I really don't know you yet or I'm not sure if we can trust each other yet). Ask me if you are in my visibility drawer - if I say yes - maybe we should spend some time together moving our relationship from Visibility to Credibility. I try to sort this drawer alphabetically - just in case I want to find your card to hand to someone. This hand off is not a referral - it is probably given with a little warning that I can't really vouch for your service or product.

Invisibility Drawer - I'm not sure who you are and I'm pretty sure you really don't know who I am. How did I get your card? Maybe I picked it up because I thought you had a business that I might need to use (possible vendor) or because one of my referral partners or clients was looking to meet someone in your profession or because your card looks really nice.

It only took me about 7 years in business to realize that I needed to do something proactive to control the flow of business cards coming into my life. When I'm ready to refer someone I know just where to look. My goal is to revisit these bins, boxes, and drawers at least 3 times a year to move cards into their proper location. Ideally all relationships would go from Invisibility to Visibility to Credibility, but they may go in the other direction too!

What do you do with the business cards you receive? How much more powerful would your referral activity be if you could pass the card of your referral partner to the prospect or potential client? What is someone was able to do that for you?

Upcoming Events

1. Dunk Dave
Tomorrow I’ll be in the dunking booth at Dryden Dairy Day (Parade at 9am on Main Street in Dryden Village, Dairy Day Festivities in Montgomery Park in Dryden Village starting at 10am). My turn in the dunking booth starts at noon (or earlier if it is really hot out). Come and take your best shot. The booth is run by the Dryden Boy Scouts as a fundraiser.

2. Networking @ Noon (for Chamber Members and FLEF members)
On Thursday, June 17th I’ll be speaking at the Chamber of Commerce’s Networking @ Noon and Finger Lakes Entrepreneurs Forum (FLEF) luncheon. The lunch is at the Large Pavilion at Stewart Park and I’ll be speaking for about 20 minutes on “Visibility, Credibility, and the Entrepreneur”. The cost is $25 and registration is required. Call 273-7080 or tompkinschamber.org to register.

3. Women TIES Greater Ithaca June Luncheon
Also on Thursday, June 17th (at noon!): My friend Lee Ann Capogrossi is a marketing specialist will share her expertise on how to build a successful marketing plan for a business, why it is important and the key components required to make it effective. More importantly, she’ll talk about the tools, tactics, and timing that turn marketing dollars into revenue dollars and show you ways you can market your business without even spending any money! The event is sponsored by Rasa Spa (and will be held at Rasa Spa in Ithaca). The cost is $28 and includes lunch, some networking time, and Lee Ann’s program. Reserve your seat by June 14th at http://www.womenties.com or 315-471-1987.

4. WISE Launch Hour: What is a “Mastermind” Group with Pamela Moss
ALSO on Thursday, June 17th (at noon!!): My friend Pamela Moss of Inner Vision Portraits will be speaking at the South Side Innovation Center (2610 S. Salina St. Syracuse) from Noon to 1pm. There is no charge. Pamela’s presentation will cover: What is a "Mastermind" group? How can it give women entrepreneurs the support and clarity we need? The 6 Secrets that Supercharge Your Success. Contact Alicia Millington to register at (315) 443-8634 or ACMillin@syr.edu

5. Turning Your Dreams into Reality, a "Grow Your Dreams" Vision Board Retreat
Pamela is conducting a retreat on June 24th in Skaneateles, contact Pamela at pamela@innervisionportraits.com for registration details.
At the Retreat's lovely lakeside setting, you will: literally see your big vision for your business and your life; create a vision board to stay inspired and motivated; learn the 6 Secrets That Supercharge Your Success -- and how to apply them; enjoy an inspiring, fun, and mind-opening morning with some amazing women entrepreneurs!
When: Thursday June 24 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM
Where: Stella Maris Retreat and Renewal Center, Skaneateles NY www.stellamarisretreat.org
$89 includes lunch, tea, coffee, and all materials, inspirational raffle items, and $20 tax-deductible donation to Stella Maris
Limited to 25 women only!! (Currently have 14 places left.)


Have a great weekend! Hopefully I’ll see you in Dryden’s Montgomery Park tomorrow.

Clients in 10 States

When I ran 544 Productions Website Design I had clients in 10 different states. All of these clients were from word-of-mouth. As I’ve been working with clients of the Referral Institute I’ve found that businesses with nationwide clients feel that word-of-mouth can’t work for them. Here is what I’ve found that really works.

Growing your business to have clients in ten states follows the same methods that a business owner would follow if they wanted 10 clients in their neighborhood. The first step is to run a good business – provide a great product and superior customer service. The second step is to follow the same rules that apply for growing your business locally. Here are the rules I followed:

1. Use word-of-mouth at home to grow your business. I lived in Ithaca and I had a few clients in Ithaca. I wanted more clients in and out of Ithaca – as my goal was to bring in business for Ithaca based graphic designers, writers, and programmers. I joined BNI and started to grow my business locally.
2. Identify people that you already know that might make good referral sources. I choose BNI members that had the same target market as my web business (My Target Market was Business Owners).
3. I also identified clients that were in professions that had nationwide counterparts (Educational Consultants, Massage Therapists).
4. I developed strong relationships with these BNI members and these clients. I worked to educate them on what I liked to do for work, who I liked to work with, and that clients could be from anywhere in the United States.
5. I worked to motivate these sources (from the 15 ways to motivate from Certified Networker) and they started to generate referrals for me.
6. I worked with these referrals and turned the referrals I received into clients.

Are you trying to grow your business from the neighborhood to nationwide? I can help you develop a structured plan to help the right referral sources, often people you already know, to achieve tremendous results with word-of-mouth.

A $20K Marketing Budget for $200

Could your business use a $20,000 marketing budget? What if you could spend just $200 to get that $20,000 marketing budget? Would you say you might be interested?

Last Tuesday at my BNI chapter I (as the chapter's education coordinator) spoke about a few things you can do when you do a dance-card or 1-to-1 with a referral source or BNI member. The first time you meet - you could do a GAINS exchange (Goals, Accomplishments, Interests, Networks, and Skills). This could be completely structured or could be very free flow. I recommend keeping watch on time - so the first 1-to-1 doesn't last forever. Perhaps 1 hour.

If you both felt that the first meeting went well - that you both decided you'd like to continue to grow your relationship based on goals, interests, and accomplishments - then plan a second time to get together.

I recommend talking about the answers to the Six Magic Questions and working out the details of "How Can I Help You (achieve the success you'd like to see in your business and life)?". These details could easily take 30 minutes per person. Try to set a timer or watch the clock, so your time doesn't stretch too far beyond an hour.

Did the second meeting feel good to you? Are you in a position to actively support this member of your BNI chapter or in your contact sphere? Do you see the types of clients that this person would like to see? Do you know the people in the professions of referral sources that this contact would like to meet?

If you said 'yes' to these four questions - then I recommend setting a third 1-to-1 to have a conversation about your life, your family, your biography, and your history. This is a great time to go deeper to get to know the likes and dislikes of your referral partner. Here is where you might be able to find out how they got into their job - not the why, but the how of the path to this dream job of theirs.

So - for the right BNI and contact sphere relationships - you should plan to spend around 3 hours together. This time will help move your relationship from invisibility to visibility to credibility. It may even lead to profitability - but this will never effectively happen until you've passed through the other phases.

Now, about that $20,000 marketing budget. A member of my chapter calculated that with 30 members and 3 hours of meeting time per member and an hourly rate of $225 per hour that it would 'cost' him $20,000 for these meetings.

If he did feel a strong connection through the first two meetings with all 30 members and he had 90 meetings over the course of a year - the actual cost would be about $2 in coffee per meeting or $180.00. How effective would his 30 referral partners be if they spent an honest 30 minutes learning his GAINS profile, 30 minutes learning how they could help him, and 30 minutes learning about his background and biography?

The value (and referrals) would more than pay for the $20,000 in 'billable' time. These 30 people would be prepared to truly help this member and the benefits of this $180 in coffee would be worth far more than the time.

You might not have $20,000 to spend - but with the right few referral sources (at the Referral Institute we recommend 4-8 sources) - you can spend your marketing and networking time wisely to Create Referrals for Life.

"A Professional" or "My Professional"

Recently a member of my business contact sphere asked me which carries more weight when passing a referral, saying "My Professional Service Provider" or saying "A Professional Service Provider". This is a great question, which makes me think of the Truth or Delusion (by Dr. Ivan Misner and Mike Macedonio) statement, "Your best sources of referrals are your customers: Truth or Delusion?"

Dr. Ivan Misner says, “With a well-developed referral network, you can realize more good referrals from one or two professional referral sources than from all your customers – combined.”

So, while my contact sphere professional service provider could see some short term benefit from me as a client - he could realize more good referrals if he treated me as a professional referral source. Better yet, if he could develop strong relationships with a few of the right referral sources - he could find more referrals than from all of his clients - combined. I'm not his ideal client, I'm not in the scope of his laser fine target market. Could I use his services? Probably. Would it be a lot of time for a little gain on his part? Probably.

I have a real estate agent, a higher education consultant, and a car salesman in my immediate contact sphere. I know them and trust them and I have referred my friends, family, and clients to them - even though I haven't had a chance to use their services. I may not use their services myself for a long while - but that doesn't mean I can't refer them. I have to get to know them and I have to get to trust them. Some ways that we have done this:

• Show up prepared for each BNI meeting, training, and 1-to-1
• Show up on-time for every event
• Call if they said they were going to call
• Provide some positive testimonials from happy clients
• Show general interest in people
• Pass referrals to other members of our contact sphere
• Listen
• Train me to learn exactly what to look for in an ideal client
• Follow-up on the referrals that they receive
• Provide the quality of services at the prices they have quoted
• Be Truthful
• Display a positive and supportive attitude
• Build goodwill and trust
• Do a GAINS exchange

Referral Sources can do all of these things without ever having me as a direct client. If they do most of these things, and I'm in front of the clients they'd like to meet, then I'm very likely to refer their expertise. If I have a positive third party testimonial for this service provider - one that they supplied to me - then I can use that when I refer people to them.

They can be "A" professional without being "my" professional and still carry a lot of positive weight with me and the people I refer my referral sources to.

No Substitute

A few years ago I heard a story from a fellow certified first responder. She was called to a home with a man with severe chest pain. Upon the first review of the patient, she found that the patient was not overweight, didn't smoke, and exercised regularly. She asked him if he had been doing anything strenuous before the pain in the chest started - he answered no. She asked him if he had any history of high blood pressure - he answered no.

She asked him when his last meal was - he said many hours ago. His pulse was fast, he was feeling sick, he was sweaty, and he was breathless - but there wasn't any pain spreading to his arms, neck, jaw, or back. She went through the standard checklist again - and again it seemed like he had a lot of serious symptoms, but not all of them.

He hadn't been raking (it was a mild autumn day). He hadn't eaten in a few hours. He hadn't done anything out of the ordinary. She asked him if he was taking any prescriptions, he said no. What about any alternative medicines? Well, he had been taking a cayenne pepper vitamin to maintain his circulation. Had he taken any of these cayenne pepper vitamins today? No - he hadn't. Did he usually take them every day? Yes. But not today. "Right."

And have you been doing any activities that are out of the ordinary? Nope. And have you eaten anything at all in the last few hours. "Well." Well, here's the thing. He had been taking cayenne pepper vitamins every day. Yesterday he finished his last capsule. Today - he felt it was important to not skip a capsule. So he opened a capsule of another supplement, emptied the capsule, and then filled the capsule with cayenne pepper from his spice rack. Then he popped it in his mouth with a glass of water.

About 30 minutes later he called 9-1-1 because he was having severe chest pain.

Just as do-it-yourself cayenne pepper capsules are no substitute for factory produced cayenne pepper vitamins - a do-it-yourself networking group is no substitute for a strong contact networking organization like BNI.

The regulated structure of BNI is what creates a high level of value for the members. BNI has an attendance policy. BNI allows just one member per profession - to keep you from competing within the group. BNI has meetings each week of the year - which helps to develop strong relationships between business owners who actively want to support each other. BNI has a code of ethics, structured meetings, membership training, and leadership trainings. Do the do-it-yourself networking groups have these features? Will you get the same results?

At the Referral Institute we recommend joining one strong contact networking organization. We also recommend joining casual contact and service organizations that fit your business and personality. We've found that just as there is no safe substitute for cayenne pepper pills, there is no safe substitute for your business as an organization like BNI.

In Ithaca, there are two BNI Chapters that meet each week.

Ithaca Thumbs Up!

Karen Veaner, President

karen@lansingstar.com

607-533-4567

http://www.ithacathumbsup.com

Cayuga Lake Connections

Mike May, President

mike@michaelmayconstruction.com

607-345-1846

Throughout upstate New York, from Rochester to Ithaca to Syracuse to Albany over 30 BNI chapters meet each week. There is a great team of directors that can help connect you to a BNI chapter in your area. Here are some contact details.

Lesley Shimer, Managing Area Director

Syracuse, Albany

518 374-2841

Joel Craddock, Area Director

Rochester

585 750-3927

Tim Giacoman, Area Director

Ontario County, Rochester

585 381-1190

Ellen Matuszak, Area Director

Ithaca, Tompkins County/surrounding area

607 273-8110

David McLellan, Area Director

Rochester

585 503-8598

Peter Park, Area Director

Ontario County, Wayne County, Rochester

585 419-6752

Brigid Ryan, Area Director

Rochester

585 334-4322

Additional details online: http://www.bnineny.com/

How to Give

Do you want to be selling to strangers or helping a member of your referral network by connecting them to people you already know? I wrote this for members of my BNI (Business Networking International) chapter for our April 6th meeting. I've just taken on the role of Education Coordinator and my goal is to help the members of the Ithaca Thumbs Up chapter be more effective in helping each other in BNI.

"How to Give a Referral"

At each BNI meeting, members are invited to tell all of the other members what they are looking for this week. This could be an ideal prospect, a contact with a certain title in a specific business, or a specific name that they'd like a personal introduction to. Here are steps to helping out at least one member of your BNI chapter (or of your referral network):

1. Write down what everyone is looking for, you may have 15 or 30 or 40 ideas of what people are looking for.

2. Pick one person that you can help from the list, based on what they are looking for

3. Circle that name and 'who' they were looking for

4. Call the 'who' by noon

5. If you don't have that 'who' - ask the first 3 people you meet on Tuesday if they know that 'who'

6. Continue all week (asking the first 3 people you meet, until you make the connection).

7. Bring that person's contact information and permission to call to your BNI chapter next week

8. Repeat this each week and give 50 referrals a year!

Additional Information: You Know the Prospect

Hi ______________,

Can I introduce you to (name of BNI member), the owner of the (BNI member's company name), who can help you (service BNI member provides)? He/She has helped me (how have they helped you?) and I’m seeing the results in my (business / life / health / family / can you provide an effective 3rd party testimonial here?).

Let me know if I can make this introduction.

Thank you,

--You Ask someone you know if they know the prospect--

Hi _(name of friend)_,

Can you do me a favor? I’m trying to help my friend _(BNI member first name)_ by connecting him/her to a _(who are they are looking for this week)_.

Do you know a _(Business Owner / Person / Someone)_ that you can introduce me to that fits that description?

Thanks!

--Your follow-up contact with the prospect--

Hi _(Prospect Name)_,

(Your Friend) gave me your contact information – she/he said you were a (who your BNI member is looking for this week).

Can I introduce you to (BNI member), the owner of (BNI member company name), who can help you (how can they help?)? He/She has helped me (how have they helped you?) and I’m seeing the results in my (business / life / health / family / can you provide an effective 3rd party testimonial here?).

Can make this introduction?

Thank you,

--

Repeat this and you too can bring 50 referrals a year to BNI.